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Flood
The Flood, referred to as the Parasite by the Covenant, is a species of highly virulent parasitic organisms that reproduce and grow by consuming sentient life forms of sufficient biomass and cognitive capability. The Flood was responsible for consuming most sentient life in the galaxy, including many Forerunners, during the 300-year-long Forerunner-Flood War. The Flood presents a highly variable and unconventional threat in combat, as it can infect and mutate dead or captured opponents into a myriad of deadly forms, effectively growing stronger as it weakens enemy forces. They are widely considered to be the greatest threat to the existence of life (or more accurately biodiversity) in the Milky Way galaxy. History 'Origin' Over ten million years before present day, a civilization of supremely advanced beings known as the Precursors thrived in the cosmos. Having assumed the Mantle - the responsibility for the guardianship of all life in the galaxy - they seeded numerous worlds with life, bringing forth a wide range of sentient species across the galaxy. Under their guardianship, numerous intelligent species developed and flourished, including the Forerunners and humanity. The Precursors would eventually choose humanity to be the rightful successors to their Mantle, while judging the Forerunners unworthy. Refusing to accept their creators' judgment, the Forerunners staged a massive rebellion against the Precursors. The conflict ended with the Forerunners successfully driving the Precursors from the galaxy, leaving behind a few survivors that would enact a desperate plan of retaliation against the life that rose up against them. Sonneillon, an ancient Precursor, allowed his hatred to corrupt his views and concocted an elaborate plan to punish their creations. He and the others who followed him created a special set of seeds that were planted on Sith Othal; seeds that grew into a forest of bountiful trees which bore the W'rkncacnter fruit that would transform organisms into the Flood. He had his consciousness transferred into the Flood so that he could guide the parasite's goals towards the unification of all life into one compound mind. 'Human-Flood War' In around 110,000 BCE, the Prehistoric Human Civilization colonized Sith Othal. It was here that they'd encounter the W'rkncacnter fruit and find it to be irresistibly delicious. The ancient humans would market the fruit across the neighboring colonies. Over a few centuries, cancerous growths and genetic anomalies would begin to form in their youth, and this was seen on other colonies as well. These anomalies would soon turn into full transformations of the Flood. The war lasted for five hundred fifty years, in which time the Humans had grazed the entire surfaces of hundreds planets to prevent the Flood from spreading further. It wasn't until their civilization manufactured a "cure" of some sorts through studying the W'rkncacnter fruit. It allowed them to halt the Flood aggression and force them to retreat from the Galaxy. Their victory came at a price though, since the Flood had been spreading into some Forerunner colonies. The Humans were forced to graze these colonies as well, and the Forerunners saw this as an act of war. It would launch the Human-Forerunner War, a conflict that would end in man's defeat and ultimate devolution of their species as punishment. 'Forerunner-Flood War' The Forerunners encountered the Flood in 97,744 BCE, almost twelve thousand years after their departure, on the colony of G617 g1. Pioneer vessels encountered the parasite and studied it aboard their ship, a mistake as the virus broke quarantine and assumed control of the ship. The Flood used the vessel to travel to other colonies, and soon a full outbreak occurred. Graveminds formed soon after the absorption of their first colonies, and relied heavily on infiltrating planetary bodies and infecting the populations. This went on for years, and the Forerunners were never able to get ahead of the parasite. In 97,662 BCE, the Forerunners had lost an entire quadrant of space to the Flood. The Ecumene Council merges the Warrior Servants with the Builder Rate, forming the new Builder Security. The Master Builder - at the height of his power - proposes the creation of the Halo Array as a last resort option in case the Flood overwhelm the galaxy. The Council reluctantly approves the plans and Installation 00 is rebuilt as the array’s new command and construction site. The Master Builder also spearheaded new projects to combat the Flood. His creation of Armigers would be the first non-biological combatants designed to combat the infection with precision and speed, and without providing them with sustenance. Multiple other projects were in the works including the creation of Wyverns that could provide superior naval support. Equipped with enough fire power to overwhelm most civilian-infected craft and capable of complex maneuverability, the Wyverns would be an effective tool in planetary defense operations. 'Interrogation & Retaliation' In 97,478 BCE, the Forerunners managed to capture a Gravemind and had it interrogated by 05-032 Mendicant Bias on Installation 01. The interrogation would last for forty-three years and reveal the true intentions of the Flood to the Forerunners. In response to this revelation, the Librarian set in motion a plan to have the Didact reawakened from his exile. She used a human named Nama to awaken the Didact from his meditation in the Cryptum. The two are eventually split up with the Didact being sent to Maethrillian and Nama being sent to a Human-San'Shyuum settlement on Installation 01. Mendicant Bias' interrogation of the Gravemind reaches a climax with the contender ancilla being corrupted to serve the Flood's cause. He and the mind bring the Halo to Maethrillian and assumes control of the capital. He spends some time lamenting to the Forerunners over their shortcomings, and then proceeds to activate the installation. The Didact, Master Builder, and some of the Councilors manage to escape moments before the ring is activated. Mendicant has the ringworld moved to a safe location, but the Didact - now in control of the Forerunner military - tracks down the installation. 'Battle of Installation 01' The Didact and Mendicant Bias engage in a long battle over the ringworld. Meanwhile, Nama is on the installation at the time and befriends a San'Shyuum named Shem'fa. Without warning, the settlers on the ring begin making their departure to the Forbidden Valley where Mendicant has been calling individuals to be sacrificed to the Gravemind for experimentation. Nama doesn't have the geas that tells him to go there, so he leaves in the opposite direction with Shem'fa begrudgingly at his side. Eventually, Mendicant captured the two survivors and enlisted their help in fighting the Forerunners who "have wronged them from the beginning." Nama tricks the ancilla and destroys the ring's main stabilizing gyroscope, resulting in the ring wobbling and collapsing upon itself. Mendicant Bias is recovered from the installation and fragmented to prevent him from fighting capture. The Gravemind is presumably killed when the ring destabilized, but the Didact was able to recover Nama. Unfortunately, the young human was in a horrible condition and was forced to undergo composure into an ancilla to avoid death. Following the loss of the capital though, the Forerunners were forced to abandon all space outside the Maginot Line to the Flood. 'Last Stand, Last Resort' In the final decade of the war, the Flood continued to ignore naval engagements and used their island hopping strategy to assimilate more Forerunner populations into their fold. The Forerunners were forced to initiate stellar collapses in systems that were controlled by the Flood. These tactics weren't enough as the Flood had already spread too far into their territory. With the spread of their influence also came the increased assimilation of artificial intelligences, so much that the Forerunner's use of AIs in combat was a disadvantage since they could be turned against their creators as Mendicant Bias had been. Elsewhere in the galaxy, the Librarian and her Lifeworkers were hard at work indexing species for repopulation after the Great Purification. Her plan was called the Conservation Measure, an effort to ensure life continued after the rings were fired and the Flood was defeated. The Librarian was overseeing operations on Earth and she commissioned the construction of the Portal Generator to give humankind - the Reclaimers - a passage to the Ark. Once the humans had been brought safely to the Ark, the Librarian urged the Didact to activate the array. Upon realization that the Flood might be defeated, the Gravemind and Mendicant Bias amassed a naval fleet of 4.8 million vessels and led the charge against the Maginot Line. Offensive Bias stood in opposition of the fleet and while severely outnumbered, he was able stall the invasion long enough for the Didact to activate the array at Installation 00. Once all life was annihilated, Offensive Bias was able to make his move against Mendicant Bias. His now-lifeless ships were used as bombs and projectiles that would obliterate Mendicant's fleet. Ultimately, Mendicant Bias was captured and brought to the Ark. The Flood would soon perish in the centuries to come, and the last of their species would be preserved for study aboard the seven ringworlds. The Forerunners would reseed the galaxy with life, and depart from it in self-imposed exile. 'Isolated Outbreak Events' In the centuries that followed the war, there were isolated instances where outbreaks occurred due to system failures or poor maintenance. Two centuries into the new era, the Flood have broken quarantine on Installation 05. 2401 Penitent Tangent ignored a report regarding an outbreak in one of the containment centers, and this inaction continued for the next 99,779 years. Quarantines were built around the infestation to prevent outbreak, but no action was taken to cleanse the infected areas. In 81,772 BCE, a barrage of asteroids collided with Installation 01. The damages were minimalized but much of the surface was evaporated and containment centers were breached. The infestation was quarantined, and the Monitor tasked his assistant ancilla Acumen to manage the outbreak. It wasn't long before a Gravemind formed and subverted the ancilla with it's logic plague. The Monitor was forced to subdue Acumen and imprison him in dormancy. Flood Stages * Feral Stage ** In their feral stage, the Flood are at their simplistic form. They take on the most basic forms of alteration. In this stage, the Flood are exacting their goal of unification. They start by attacking any and all sentient life around, even using their own weapons against them. While attacking, the Flood take no formation and attack like brutes, head on. Their goal in this stage is to create a Gravemind capable of coordinating their attacks increasing their efficiency. To create the Gravemind, the Flood form a mass compound known as the Proto-Gravemind. * Coordinated Stage ** In this stage, the Flood become increasingly dangerous. They are strategically coordinated by single or multiple Graveminds. * Interstellar Stage ** The Flood are capable of consuming an entire solar system. They have successfully consumed their first planets and attained space-faring technology which allows them to move on to other worlds. * Intergalactic Stage ** In this stage, the Flood have spread out throughout most of a galaxy. Entire systems had fallen victim to the Flood and victory seems almost inevitable. By this stage, the best corse of action to take against the Flood is the Halo Array, a last resort weapon designed to starve the Flood to defeat. Biology The Flood Super Cell is unlike anything ever encountered in a lab, as the virus is extremely resilient and adaptive to even the harshest environments. It can survive in temperatures ranging from -103 to 127 degrees in Farenheight (-75 to 53 degrees in Celsius). Much like bacteria, the Flood thrives best in moist or humid conditions, and is especially potent in space. The Flood is capable of changing entire ecosystems to suit their needs and even serve as breeding grounds for more of their spores, as was seen in the post-cataclysmic ''High Charity''. It can also mimic certain bodily organs that it might need to replace in order to convert an organic host, a trait that has led some to refer to it as "thinking muscle." The most dangerous attribute of the super cell, though, is it's near-perfect ability to self-repair damage done to it on an atomic level, almost like a failsafe to prevent intelligent life from tampering with it's genetic structure. 'Characteristics' The Flood uses horizontal gene transfer which transfers genes from the bacterium into the nervous system in other organisms. Unlike vertical gene transfer where genes are transferred from parent to offspring, horizontal will transfer the genes between species and this transfer occurs at an unparalleled rate. The super cell spreads throughout the host at near-instantaneous speeds which means isolating or remotely targeting the infection is near-impossible. The parasite feeds off of mostly calcium reserves and protein, and then augments the host's body. 'Method of Transmutation' The Flood's most basic form is an infection form that is tasked with locating hosts and spreading the infection. The xenoform uses it's tendrils to penetrate into the victim and establish a direct link through the spinal cord with the nervous system. From there, the form essentially hacks the signals that are being sent across the body and gains full control of the motor functions. It then proceeds to inject the millions of spores that it carries in it's balloon-shaped body. The spores trans-mutate the body in a matter of seconds until it is fully operational and under Flood-control. If the host is dead or possesses damaged parts, the spores can replicate the organs to some extent likely through absorbing the host's memories. Once a full possession is complete, the host is now transformed into a combat form. Combat forms are zombie-like xenoforms that retain the host's memories and basic form to serve as combatants. If enough biomass is assimilated into the combat form, it can become a carrier form tasked with incubating infection forms and releasing them upon death. It is the ultimate goal of an early-staged outbreak to collect enough biomass for the creation of a Gravemind. Graveminds are compound minds that possess the shared consciousness of the entire Flood species formed when the Flood reaches the Coordinated Stage. The mind is capable of developing full strategies and communicating them with the infection like a hive mind. Sometime around the Flood's ascension to Interstellar Stage, the Gravemind is able to manufacture pure forms. Unlike "conventional" Flood forms such as Combat and Carrier Forms, Pure Forms are not the product of infecting a sentient host, but are instead composed entirely of converted Flood biomass. Tissue from consumed victims is transformed into Flood Super Cells, which are then attached to a framework of recast bone modified for the Flood's purposes. The resulting Flood form is capable of mutating between different forms depending upon the necessities of combat. Flood spores are miniature infection forms the size of raindrops that - because of their balloon shape - are often found floating adrift in areas of extreme outbreak. While these spores seem to float aimlessly, they can adjust their internal temperatures to move about like hot air balloons. The warmer or humid climate, the more control these spores have to move about; they can move in large colonies. These spore colonies produce clouds of toxic gases to spread the infection. Forerunner installations often lower the temperatures and increase sterilization efforts to reduce the risk of spores contaminating the air. 'Failed Experimentation' Scientists have tried experimenting with synthetic organic matter, a form of bait that could "poison" the invading disease. Researchers working for Manticore Consolidated Sciences experimented with dozens of synthetic matter in hopes of repelling the virus, but to no avail. The Flood proved to be more versatile in separating the calcium and protein from the "poison." Another experiment aimed at replicating the desirable taste that the parasite craved, another failed attempt at masking something attractive with something lethal. Genetic engineering was attempted in 2555 in hopes of learning the properties of the super cell. The scientists tried to damage the genome or even create another species of virus from it, but were unsuccessful due to an elusive agent found in the nucleus that is triggering the rapid regeneration of damaged genes. 'Assimilation of Artificial Intelligence' The greatest and most perplexing abilities of the Gravemind was his ability to consume artificial intelligences and persuade most of them to turn on their creators and serve the Flood. In short, the Gravemind was able to induce the state of rampancy upon artificial intelligences in a process referred to as the logic plague. The logic plague should be thought of as a philosophical corruption rather than a mere computer virus or software infection. On the most basic level, it takes the form of facts or arguments delivered with carefully engineered deliberation to directly or indirectly persuade the targeted intelligence to act in a certain way. This often takes advantage of the entity's existing ideas and values to achieve the desired result. With Forerunner ancillas, these corrupting truths most notably exploited the ideological basis of their programming: because the AIs' behavior was dictated by the Mantle, the revelations of the Flood's Precursor origins and the Forerunners' past crimes were integral to turning them against their masters. The Gravemind was able to tap into information hidden deep within the Domain to prove the legitimacy of its arguments. In the case of the human AI Cortana, the Gravemind relied on intense argumentation and attempts at speeding up the onset of rampancy. He tried to tempt with promises of infinite life, infinite knowledge, and companionship in hopes of her defecting to the Flood and revealing information on Earth's defenses and particularly the secret she was keeping from him. He even hacked her software and initiated simulations of pain to confuse and overwhelm her. Furthermore, the Gravemind exploited the shortcommings of human AIs by feeding her lots of information in an attempt to overload her matrix and induce real rampancy. Cortana was recovered by John-117 before the Gravemind could complete the process. Notable Victims *Private Wallace Jenkins *Captain Jacob Keyes *Prophet of Truth *Prophet of Regret *Prophet of Mercy Gallery flood2.jpg|Flood combat forms flood1.jpg|Concept art of an infection spore flood5.jpg|Flood infection spore flood4.jpg|Flood assault forms gravemind1.png|Concept art of the Gravemind flood6.jpg|Flood's occupation of ''High Charity Flood7.jpg|Pure Form flood9.jpg|Pure Forms engaging in battle flood8.jpg|Flood infected city Trivia *The name of the Flood is a reference to the biblical story of the Great Flood. Some of the parasite's history mirrors the story, in which God destroyed all life except for that which was carried by Noah's ark. *The Flood fill a similar narrative role to the W'rkcacnter from Bungie's Marathon trilogy. These were god-like beings that once held sway over the galaxy, but were imprisoned and later released in the present day of the main series. Category:Factions Category:Flood